Before I started this blog, I had a pretty steady stream of email contacts from both my activities on Find a Grave and my online family tree.

I'd get one or two email contacts a week, asking for more information or clarification, or search tips on brick walls. That's in addition to the handful of people with whom I have regular, ongoing email correspondence - usually collaborative research. A far-flung Bowden cousin is steadily sending me information about burial locations for just about all the Bowdens he has in his family tree. We share some, but not all of those.

Since starting this blog on Halloween last year, I get twice as many weekly contacts as I did before. They mention they found my blog in the email. Some of them post comments on relevant entries, but not all.

This week - starting on Sunday - all the contacts have been about collateral relatives, and the people they married. I've learned some really neat details about the people who are the subjects of a search.

So this week, I am hunting death dates and interment information for some people I didn't even realize existed prior to the contact.

For me, these contacts are so illustrative of the ties shared by so many people. Like ripples across a pond, we exist on a web - some of us directly connected, others not.

This week's email exchanges with some very delightful and passionate people makes me realize (once again) that even if I haven't yet fleshed all my collateral lines, or don't know who great grand-aunt Susan married, they are still connected to me.